Herb Ritchie

1945 - 2022

Herb Ritchie
11/10/1945 - 12/01/2022
Judge Herb Ritchie. 77, died unexpectedly on Thursday, December 1, 2022 in St. Luke's Hospital in Houston, Texas. A private family viewing will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., followed by a memorial service from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 8, 2022, at Bradshaw-Carter Funeral Home, 1734 W. Alabama St., Houston, Texas 77098. Interment will follow at 1:30 p.m. in Oakwood Cemetery located in Coldspring, Texas.
Judge Ritchie was born in Stuttgart, Arkansas, the son of Jack and Jean Ritchie, and moved with his family to Amarillo, Texas as a child. He graduated from Tascosa High School in 1964 and left for Austin where he began his undergradudate studies, obtaining a bachelor's degree with honors in 1967. He obtained a Masters degree in 1969, following which he became an undergraduate teaching assistant in Classics at U.T. Austin and Baylor Universities for two years. He then decided to follow his father's footsteps by enrolling in the University of Texas at Austin School of Law in 1971 where he obtained his doctorate in Law (J.D.) with honors in January of 1974, passing the bar with the third highest score, missing the second highest score by a quarter point. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Delta Phi, and Eta Sigma Phi.
Following law school, he worked as a staff attorney for the Texas Real Estate Commission in Austin for a year before hiring on as a staff attorney for then Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, where after a year, he was transferred to St. Louis, then the headquarters for the company, to be groomed for the company's chief counsel. Finding the corporate life not to his liking, he resigned, returned to Houston in 1977 and began practicing law as managing partner of the newly-formed Ritchie and Glass, Attorneys at Law. His former partner, both in life and in law, Greg Glass, is presently Judge of the 208th District Court. Initially, Judge Ritchie handled all the civil matters and Judge Glass the criminal. However, over time, Judge Ritchie became more and more involved in the criminal practice of law, which piqued his interest in the criminal bench, and resulted in his election as Judge of the 337th District Criminal Court in 2008, which ended the law partnership of over 30 years. Judge Ritchie lost his re-election bid in 2012 in a Republican sweep, but was re-elected four years later, serving again in the 337th from 2017 to 2020. From 2018 to the end of his term in 2020, he served as Harris County's Criminal Administrative Judge. He frequently sat as a retired visiting judge in Harris County as late as early November of 2022.
Judge Ritchie was an extraordinary man, lawyer and Judge. He was kind, scholarly and possessed perfect judicial demeanor. He always strived to run his Court with a philosophy of CPR: Courtesy, Patience and Respect. He once said the greatest lesson he learned from his father, who became Chief Counsel of the Amarillo Division of Phillips Petroleum, was "Do it now, don't procrastinate," a rule he rigidly employed and which resulted in a life of accomplishment and success. He also believed that lawyers appearing before his bench should be fully heard and all their arguments considered before he ruled.
In his free time, Judge Ritchie enjoyed traveling, to England, France, Italy and particularly to Taiwan in his later years, in addition to his country home in Coldspring, and also to Amarillo, where he maintained his childhood family home.
Judge Ritchie was preceded in death by his parents, two young sisters, and a brother and sister-in-law. He is survived by his life partner, Judge Glass, his brothers, Brian, Steve and Tim Ritchie, and their respective wives, Molly, Julie and Lisa, as well as his sister, Kimberly Lamb and husband, Jeff Lamb, and numerous nieces and nephews. He will be deeply missed by all of them.